Live data from Hacker News

Scrollbars are becoming a problem

artemis.sh

31–40 of 944 posts

Re: Scrollbars are becoming a problem

#31
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it ironic that in order for your comment to be accessible the reader must lookup “a11y” to find that it means “accessibility”.

That's like saying you shouldn't use slang because people have to look it up.

username checks out.

Re: Scrollbars are becoming a problem

#32

Once again I have to give firefox credit for giving users the tools in about:config to disable this. It's cute fluff at best and annoying/abusive at worst. The browser's UI should more or less be fully off the table when it comes to what a website can change, and that includes scrollbars.

Let's include smooth scrolling in that list, too (whether scrolling with the mouse wheel or moving between words I Ctrl-F for on the page). Thankfully you can override this with uBlock Origin.

Re: Scrollbars are becoming a problem

#33

I have come to a funny realisation recently. It's not my eyesight which is becoming worse, it's the UIs which are becoming worse. The tiny scrollbars with laughable contrast are in no way accessible to anyone. I've recently switched to using KDE with the Oxygen theme and it's a joy to use without any eye strain. These scrollbars are absolutely pathetic, with no room for customisation. (good luck theming a locked-down…

> I have come to a funny realisation recently. It's not my eyesight which is becoming worse, it's the UIs which are becoming worse.

We've hit peak usability about twenty years ago, in the Windows 2000 era. The screenshot in the article is actually from about that era, it's one of the early 10.x (10.3 I believe) OS X releases.

Re: Scrollbars are becoming a problem

#34

I have come to a funny realisation recently. It's not my eyesight which is becoming worse, it's the UIs which are becoming worse. The tiny scrollbars with laughable contrast are in no way accessible to anyone. I've recently switched to using KDE with the Oxygen theme and it's a joy to use without any eye strain. These scrollbars are absolutely pathetic, with no room for customisation. (good luck theming a locked-down…

I think it's just become common belief among developers that scrollbars are bad... (facepalm)

Re: Scrollbars are becoming a problem

#35

I feel like the iOS scroll bars fall into this a lot as well. They’re so hard to consistently get with you finger

TIL you can actually drag Scrollbars on iOS. They are so tiny I would never have assumed they react to a touch.

That actually gives me a reverse accessibility problem on iOS, because I will try to drag-scroll at the edge of the screen but accidentally grab the scrollbar, which goes in the opposite direction.

Re: Scrollbars are becoming a problem

#36

I have come to a funny realisation recently. It's not my eyesight which is becoming worse, it's the UIs which are becoming worse. The tiny scrollbars with laughable contrast are in no way accessible to anyone. I've recently switched to using KDE with the Oxygen theme and it's a joy to use without any eye strain. These scrollbars are absolutely pathetic, with no room for customisation. (good luck theming a locked-down…

> Also, we wouldn't need "dark mode" or the such if the UIs had any contrast and were legible.

Contrast is a factor yes, but the other thing that's happened with the flat UI epidemic is banishment of mid grays and light grays in favor of stark white and off-whites, making "light mode" much more bright looking than it had been previously. It's no wonder people were clamoring for dark mode after blinding flat UI had taken over.

Re: Scrollbars are becoming a problem

#38
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it ironic that in order for your comment to be accessible the reader must lookup “a11y” to find that it means “accessibility”.

That's like saying you shouldn't use slang because people have to look it up.

Jargon to another social circle doesn't help you or your audience.

Re: Scrollbars are becoming a problem

#39

Whenever I read a piece like this or another UX blog, it just becomes so obvious how little we care about a11y. “Good” (as in accessible) design is pretty boring and decluttered compared to most modern expectations of web apps. I read Adam Silver’s book on forms and came away realizing that we’re doing it entirely wrong from an a11y standpoint but that’s just not a priority.

It’s not exactly wrong from a business standpoint. The math just comes out that a business does better when they do all the things they can’t do if they want an accessible website. Dark patterns, especially, are very anti-accessibility.

It’s why we need laws to mandate accessibility.

Re: Scrollbars are becoming a problem

#40
post #2

>gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface overlay-scrolling false "Don't rely on gsettings. They are private and users are not supposed to be setting them theirselves. Don't complain when they suddenly stop working." -- every gtk dev I've ever talked to. That said, I've applied those firefox about:config fixes and it's much better. Whew.

gnome is unusable
Post reply on HN